


Man Behind the Mask (the "Like a Two-Edged Sword" Remix)

by SRoni



Category: Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 10:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12056781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SRoni/pseuds/SRoni
Summary: The grass is always greener on the other side.





	Man Behind the Mask (the "Like a Two-Edged Sword" Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MiraMira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/gifts).
  * Inspired by [For the Man Who Has Too Much](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2535032) by [MiraMira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/pseuds/MiraMira). 



He had a plan for everything. Literally, he had spent hours thinking of all the possible scenarios he could, putting them in order of likelihood and again in order of magnitude and severity, and then had come up with at least three contingency plans for each one. And then he'd gone through and thought of all the possible things that could go wrong with each contingency plan, and come up with plans for those. Once a week, he would sit down and read through his list and see if there was anything else he could think of to add to and then come up with counter plans for those new problems.

There was a lot of overlap, of course, because that's just the way it goes, there are a lot of plans that are going to cover a lot of different problems, with different variations of them to account for the individual needs.

But the point was that he had a plan for _everything_. He prided himself on this.

This was the first time that his plans for a situation hadn't survived contact with it. Sure, one or two or thirty of them might have to be tossed but one of his plans would work, it was just a matter of finding the one that would, that was just the way it _was_.He made plans, things happened, he went through the plans until he found one that worked, the end, and then it's time for the aftermath and the clean up. And sometimes the aftermath and the cleanup required their own plans to deal with them, but the problem had still been taken care of and this was a new problem, just one connected to the first one.

This was different.

He'd had a plan for this, of course. There was no question about _that_. Of _course_ he was going to consider the possibility of winding up in a teammate's body. He'd come up with plans for each of his teammates, each of his enemies, and plans for random people's bodies and how to prove that it was really him. (He had also planned how to make sure that if it was a true body switch, that whoever was riding in _his_ body didn't get access to anything, but that didn't matter so much right now.) He _planned_ , damn it, and his plans were _good_ ones.

And of course he'd thought about all the things he could _do_ if he'd had superpowers. _Real_ superpowers. _Clark's_ powers. All the things he could do, all the ways he could help, all the people he could save.

 _All the people he could save_.

He'd never wanted it badly enough to seek out abilities for himself; there were ways he could have, had he so desired, but those were... fickle, he couldn't trust them to hold steady. They could disappear at an inopportune moment, or change, or someone could twist it if they had the right materials and means and knowledge to do so, and there was _always_ a way for someone to take advantage of man-made (man-made, alien-made, magic-made) powers.

No, he couldn't trust them, so he'd never gotten them.

And now he had them, he had the ability to save _so many people_ , and he did, he _did_ save and help hundreds, but it wasn't enough, there were thousands more still screaming for his help, and he was fast, he was faster than he'd imagined, and it was still _not enough_ , and it wouldn't _be_ enough. There could be ten of him, all as fast as him, and it wouldn't even make a dent.

He was failing, and he was not used to failure. If he ran into something he didn't know how to do, he applied himself until he _did_ know how to do it. Maybe he was obsessive, maybe he was controlling (forget the maybes about it), but he knew how to put himself to a problem until he found success.

He hadn't slept in three days, and he was starting to hit his limit of exhaustion. He knew that he needed to take a break, get some food, get some sleep, that he was going to run himself into the ground and then be unable to help anyone, but..

But he couldn't. Not yet. Maybe after the next one.

Diana was worried about him, but she couldn't keep up with him and she couldn't stop him. She could help him or she could get out of the way, and she helped him when she could, and chose to get out of the way when she couldn't. She was currently getting out of the way while he flew as fast as he could, hoping to get there in time.

Diana was speaking quietly to Wally, but even at the low volume and as far away as they were, he could hear her voice as clearly as if she was standing next to him and talking to him.

"Do you know how many children see their parents die, every day?"

"No?"

"Neither do I. But imagine you're _Bruce Wayne_ , and you can suddenly hear every single one of those children begging for help."

He had thought about it in an abstract way, of course. Running numbers that were available and assigning a number to account for the ones that he couldn't find reports for or mentions of. But it wasn't the same as _hearing_ it happen.

He thought he knew. He _thought_ he knew, at least close enough to count as correct, even though this was neither horseshoes or hand grenades.

He did know. He did know now. He committed as many names to memory as he could, knowing that wouldn't be enough, keeping a running tally in his head as accurate as he could, knowing it would be wrong and too low. But he had to do this, he had to keep track, because he'd had a plan for if he ever got powers, all the people he was going to save, and now his plan wasn't surviving contact and he _owed_ it to those children to _remember them_ , remember the ones he wasn't able to help.


End file.
